Iran in the news
Well...I read in the NY Times that Iran isn't happy about our suggestions about how and when they should enrich Uranium.
I don't know. I honestly don't. I'm not a big fan of Iran. I don't particularly think its an able bodied political organism. They seem to me like a drug cartel that just wasn't lucky enough to be born in a South American jungle where our CIA could help protect them. What's more, most people in the Middle East seem to feel the same way (contrary to popular belief, though conservative, many Middle Eastern nations aren't crazy). And so, of course, when Iran decides that they don't want help at all from "the west" (i.e. us), I don't think it's that off for us to believe that these people are trying to spurn others from censuring their hostilities. While they attempt to build nuclear weapons and train terrorists.
I also want to point out that none of this is about legality because you can't "try" Iran in a world court. The idea of a nation IS the body of laws that its citizens are expected to follow. You can't try U.S. citizens on Germany's laws (unless of course those laws are broken on German soil). This was, by the way, the exact problem that we had with post-war German "criminals": they hadn't actually broken any laws because our laws didn't apply. This is why we couldn't punish anybody unless they were war criminals. Landlords who had evicted tennants for being Jewish hadn't broken any laws ; quite the contrary. If Germany hadn't stripped the Jews of their citizenship, we wouldn't have had much recourse for the Holocaust of German Jews at all.
In any case, you can't bring Iran to trial for not complying with a bunch of rules that they never agreed to follow. Sure, you can say that they aren't cooperative and in light of the fact that their president was part of the hostage crisis during the Carter administration, you might go so far as to say that they're downright hostile, but other than that, what can you do?
I want to suggest another reason, however, for why Iran might not want the U.S. telling them how and what they can do in their weapons and/or energy production programs. The second we tell a country how to manage these two areas of their politics, it is a sure sign to them (and ought to be to us) that we are planning military action. Therefore, the most logical response to the U.S. calls for reform in these areas is to amass an arsenal in preparation for a prolonged land war which can be (and is always) won through small arms and explosive in guerrilla warfare. To date, we've never won one of these battles and everyone in the world knows it.
Why shouldn't Iran be hostile to us when we make these assertions about what they ought to do. Should they be friendly and give our aircraft carriers port, escort the blackwater agents to their political and religious leaders for assassination, sell their oil rigs to Haliburton for pennies on the dollar? The only logical response is open hostility. Hell, if we were to tell Belgium that we don't like the way their managing their energy reserves, it would be logical for that country to tell us to piss off.
Now, if we really wanted to keep Iran from becoming a global threat, what we'd need is to encourage a nearby dictator to run a grass roots, tunnel to tunnel war against them. You know, really keep them too busy dealing with chemical weaponry to put nuculear testing facilities and terrorist training camps out there on their borders. If only there were a military leader in a near by country who displayed open hostility towards Iran to keep them in check.
I don't know. I honestly don't. I'm not a big fan of Iran. I don't particularly think its an able bodied political organism. They seem to me like a drug cartel that just wasn't lucky enough to be born in a South American jungle where our CIA could help protect them. What's more, most people in the Middle East seem to feel the same way (contrary to popular belief, though conservative, many Middle Eastern nations aren't crazy). And so, of course, when Iran decides that they don't want help at all from "the west" (i.e. us), I don't think it's that off for us to believe that these people are trying to spurn others from censuring their hostilities. While they attempt to build nuclear weapons and train terrorists.
I also want to point out that none of this is about legality because you can't "try" Iran in a world court. The idea of a nation IS the body of laws that its citizens are expected to follow. You can't try U.S. citizens on Germany's laws (unless of course those laws are broken on German soil). This was, by the way, the exact problem that we had with post-war German "criminals": they hadn't actually broken any laws because our laws didn't apply. This is why we couldn't punish anybody unless they were war criminals. Landlords who had evicted tennants for being Jewish hadn't broken any laws ; quite the contrary. If Germany hadn't stripped the Jews of their citizenship, we wouldn't have had much recourse for the Holocaust of German Jews at all.
In any case, you can't bring Iran to trial for not complying with a bunch of rules that they never agreed to follow. Sure, you can say that they aren't cooperative and in light of the fact that their president was part of the hostage crisis during the Carter administration, you might go so far as to say that they're downright hostile, but other than that, what can you do?
I want to suggest another reason, however, for why Iran might not want the U.S. telling them how and what they can do in their weapons and/or energy production programs. The second we tell a country how to manage these two areas of their politics, it is a sure sign to them (and ought to be to us) that we are planning military action. Therefore, the most logical response to the U.S. calls for reform in these areas is to amass an arsenal in preparation for a prolonged land war which can be (and is always) won through small arms and explosive in guerrilla warfare. To date, we've never won one of these battles and everyone in the world knows it.
Why shouldn't Iran be hostile to us when we make these assertions about what they ought to do. Should they be friendly and give our aircraft carriers port, escort the blackwater agents to their political and religious leaders for assassination, sell their oil rigs to Haliburton for pennies on the dollar? The only logical response is open hostility. Hell, if we were to tell Belgium that we don't like the way their managing their energy reserves, it would be logical for that country to tell us to piss off.
Now, if we really wanted to keep Iran from becoming a global threat, what we'd need is to encourage a nearby dictator to run a grass roots, tunnel to tunnel war against them. You know, really keep them too busy dealing with chemical weaponry to put nuculear testing facilities and terrorist training camps out there on their borders. If only there were a military leader in a near by country who displayed open hostility towards Iran to keep them in check.
posted by Monstro D. Whale | 11:20 AM
1 Comments:
Iranian youth was our biggest ally in the region until Bush's foreign policy plan became apparent. College students in Iran were protesting on a regular basis, in favor of westernizing their country. Due to Bush's actions, that youth has most likely turned against America, and pro-Western rallies have become a thing of the past in Iran. If we'd stayed out of Iraq, Iran would've joined Democracy within a generation or two, peacefully. As it stands now, that process may have been irrevocably ruined.
Post a Comment
<< Home